


hope here needs a humble hand

by longituddeonda



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/M, Friendship, Other, Romantic Friendship, Winter, and something More, but it doesn't have to be, maybe? - Freeform, or more, possibly asexual din, references to injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28324851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longituddeonda/pseuds/longituddeonda
Summary: it had been a long time since you hoped to see din again. and yet a ship descends from the fog to your remote home, and you’re never one to turn down a friend..“I needed to see you.”Frag. You hadn’t even let yourself dream of hearing those words from that voice.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, din djarin/gn!reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	hope here needs a humble hand

**Author's Note:**

> this reader is a little less of a blank slate than all my others, but they are gender neutral. some important info about them is that they’re at least 10 years older than din, probably 50-60 when this takes place. they were bounty hunting throughout the clone wars, and made some decisions they regret.

The lake was nearly still. Small ripples darted across the surface with the wind. The wood of your house creaked something deep and powerful. Snow topped trees stood tall against the mirror-like surface, the mottled shape of thousands of brambled bare branches obscured in the reflection. 

The fog had set in earlier that morning such that you couldn’t see past the tops of some of the tallest evergreen trees. There was something freeing in the bright, fresh snow light and yet its imposing character collided down, claustrophobic. You had woken up hours ago before the sun had risen Behind the clouds and the night still wrapped the land, venturing out into the cold to collect water from upstream where the river flowed cleaner and fresher. 

By mid-morning, you were sitting comfortably in front of the windowsill, a book in your lap as the light filtered in through the glass. 

There was something beautiful about living down here. You hardly saw ships anymore, let alone other beings. No more durasteel and droids, and none of the complicated dealings of the galaxy. You had grown exhausted long ago of the ebb and flow of power. Always working for someone, never truly free. 

You knew plenty of bounty hunters who never tired of the work, always seeking out their little niche for their next power trip. They would all call you weak if they saw you now: unarmed and defenseless in an old hut on a small backwater planet.

Perhaps, though, there may have been a select few who would have secretly looked upon your situation with kindness and longing. You could do as you please, and wasn’t that what most anyone wanted?

You set down your book and looked out the window again. The thick glass distorted the view and the frame’s paint was peeling. Maybe you should get around to touching it up again. Maybe. 

It looked fine though. 

You had put a kettle over the fire a while ago and you could hear it now boiling. The jar of Spiran caf sat on the countertop and you thoughtfully prepared a cup. 

With the arrival of the thick snow cover, your daily tasks were reduced and the joy you found in a busy warm day had faded. 

The wind picked up again, causing the house to groan, and you heard a faint buzzing. 

You looked around, trying to find the source of the noise as it grew louder and louder. Cautiously, you set down your caf, walked over to the door, and shrugged on your jacket. The air hit the bare skin of your face, icy and biting. You flipped up the hood, pulling it down around your face to cover as much as possible. It didn’t keep your nose from violent exposure, nor did it in any way soothe the quickly freezing feeling in your fingers.

The buzzing was now a loud whirring, and you looked around. 

Suddenly, like a Krayt Dragon emerging from the sand, a ship descended out of the fog, making a violent turn as the pilot likely noticed the lake they were about to land on. 

Before you could process what was happening, the ship had touched ground, shuddering through the snow that piled up in heaps until the metal behemoth slowed to a stop. You couldn’t help but let out a little laugh. You rarely left, but you knew how hard it was to land a ship here. Visibility was nearly always low, and the land showed up rather quickly. 

Your joy subsided though as you started walking over to the ship. You ran through the list of people who knew where you were. There were only a few, and most of them had died or wound up in prison. 

Closer to the ship, you found even fewer clues as to the identity. The ship was unmarked.

If it had looked remotely similar to the Razor Crest, you might have thought it was—

Din. 

The cargo door had swung open to reveal the man you hadn’t seen in ages.

You froze in the snow, the precipitation beginning to soak through your boots. You hadn’t planned on leaving the house today. And yet— 

And yet.

Your lives were worlds apart now. What business did he have with you here?

You kept walking closer to the ship. Din stood on the edge of the ramp that had extended, paused before stepping into the snow. Whether it was out of hesitation, fear, or something else, you could not say. 

“Din!” you called out, now close enough that he would be able to hear you over the wind. 

He looked up, appearing to have only just noticed you. The man remained frozen. You were familiar with this kind of pause. It was uncertainty and a fear of interaction. 

You continued walking until you reached the ship and stopped, staring up at the helmet you were so familiar with. 

“What are you doing here?” you asked. You wrapped your arms around your chest, hoping you wouldn’t shiver and give away how cold you were. 

If you were to touch your nose, you weren’t sure if any of the nerves on your face were still functioning enough to feel anything beyond pressure. Or maybe you were just overreacting. You had grown up on a warmer planet. 

“I needed to see you.”

 _Frag_. You hadn’t even let yourself dream of hearing those words from that voice.

* * *

Din looked wildly out of place, sitting rigid at the empty table, hands placed firmly in front of him. You leaned back into your chair, pulling the blanket tighter around your body. He tilted his head gently to the left, and you were pretty sure it meant he was appraising you. What to make of that, you weren’t sure.

Way back when, you and Din flowed in and out of each other’s lives, crossing paths on the hunt or in the bar. And sometimes, on the rare times when he would admit to needing help, you would split the bounty. Your conversation with him was laden with hidden meanings and you would often puzzle over his words for days after he left. What Din gave you in trust, you returned in kind. 

What he didn’t know of your relationship was what worried you most. He didn’t know you had fallen at some point between the days when he would only give you a nod and a few words and those in which you could spend days filled with banter and the joyful sound of his rare laughter. It wasn’t the sort of love you saw others fall into. This was an intense sort that revolved around something you could never have and yet were entirely devoted to. You clung to his every word and would probably have followed him to the furthest edges of the galaxy. It was a powerful kind of friendship, and maybe you had wanted something more, or perhaps something more would have been too dangerous a thing. 

His presence was like a sun to those he cared for, radiating warmth and giving life. And to those he didn’t, which was most everyone he encountered, his light was rather like those on the exterior of a Star Destroyer. To recipients of his warmer light, however, his absence was a cold night with no fire to warm your bones. 

It had taken a great many years to grow accustomed to that cold. 

Things had ended rather abruptly. You had gotten gravely injured on a job, returning to Carajam with nothing but the bare bones of your ship and a host of wounds, both external and internal. The hub was bustling, as usual, and you waited a few weeks to fully heal. 

Apparently not enough.

You took another job and almost got killed.

The body that had once done you so well, pushing you to the limits of what a living being could do, rendering you better than many bounty hunting droids, had entirely failed you. As had your mind. 

The bounty dealer wouldn’t give you any jobs after that incident and you found yourself agreeing with them.

At that rate, you wouldn’t have made it another month. Some things needed to grow old. 

You told Din where you were headed, said goodbye, and never saw him again. 

It should have been more heart-wrenching, but it was so easy to walk away. It wasn’t unlike the many times you had left for a bounty; some part of you had just always assumed you’d see him again.

Actually, it hurt so much more to have him here, sitting in your kitchen. 

You brought your freshly poured mug of caf up to your lips and let the hot liquid pass through your mouth. 

“Are you just going to sit here?” you asked. Din’s silence was unnerving. The last you had seen of him, your relationship was one in which he amply poured his limited words. 

“No, I…” he trailed off.

You sat quiet, finally glad to just hear a few of those words, and gave him the space to develop whatever he had to say. 

Silence now seemed to envelop the two of you. Its arms reached wide and held you close. 

You finished your caf. 

You hadn’t even offered Din a cup. He had never eaten or drank in your presence before, and with the helmet still on, you assumed things hadn’t changed. 

The wind whistled around the house, and you silently thanked the force for holding it together for yet another season.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Din said, low and quiet. 

You nodded. “How about you start at the beginning?”

“Right.” His head dropped, helmet aimed at his lap, and the rest of his body relaxed. 

He took a shuddering breath and you realized things were different between the two of you now. Where words had once flowed like a river, things had run dry, cracked, and barren. But somewhere in that dry riverbed, something vibrant and green sprouted. He had, after all these years, sought you out. He said he _needed_ to see you. 

“Less than a year ago I took a bounty. The reward was pure beskar, and I—” If you didn’t know any better, you would have assumed the pause was his voice breaking in tears— “I should have known then. The man had stormtroopers and…”

And you let Din tell his story. 

It probably spoke volumes that you weren’t surprised the empire was still around, but Din was never one to care much for the larger political matters of the galaxy anyway. 

He spoke of a child, and the months spent on the run. He spoke of friends found along the way, people who seemed to have not only filled the space you left, but overflowed it. Your interest peaked at the mention of a few bounty hunters you were familiar with, but perhaps the most fascinating of it all was how there seemed to be a few Jedi who had persevered throughout it all. You had never been a fan, often having taken bounties in your early years against some of their lower-ranking members. But the scale of time had proved again and again that they deserved some respect. 

Din’s voice definitely cracked at the end. That you were sure of. It had only been a few weeks since all of this had transpired, as you understood. And you were familiar with the pain of losing someone important to you. 

The sky had darkened by the time he was done, and you had sat through it all, bearing witness to the entirety of something you presumed hardly anyone else had the full picture of. 

Din was a smart man who knew a great many things, but through his upbringing, he had kept away from the center of it all. He had never been to Coruscant, did not follow many of the political ongoings of the galaxy, and his only knowledge of life during the Clone Wars was as a child. 

Having started out as a young bounty hunter during that time, you knew well of the things Din spoke of. The dangers of a force-sensitive child, the fear of the empire, and the uncertain terms on which he now operated. It had been a long time since you had gotten intertwined, having remained out here on the fringes throughout the whole of the Galactic Civil War.

But Din’s story was one of family and loss, and he did not need the larger context. He needed to mourn what was, and figure out how to move forward. 

* * *

You woke to the faint morning light seeping in from behind the blinds. Not yet bright enough to leave the house without a light, but enough to begin to make out the shapes of the trees through the clouds. 

The snowsuit was laid out on the chair in your bedroom, and you took the time and care to put it on before leaving the house this time. And, to your surprise, Din’s ship was still there. You had offered up both your bed or the couch to Din for the night, and he had refused, only conceding to taking a plate of food you made back to his ship. 

You hoped he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.

It wasn’t your business to wake him, so you continued on your trip to the river. You had brought along some clothes to wash in the icy water, and hopefully, they wouldn’t freeze on the walk back. It had been a few years or so since you last owned any animals, and with the snow freezing over your garden, there wasn’t much other work to do. You would, however, need to take the speeder to the closest settlement, which was nearly a half day’s ride away, to get some more rations soon. And pick up more caf. It was never a bad thing to have too much caf.

The air was still, and much quieter than the past few days of windy skies. By the time you made it back to the house, you heard the hiss of Din’s ship doors opening. 

You looked over and saw Din’s figure appear at the top of the ramp, the soft light from the now-bright clouds glinted against his helmet, and you raised an arm in greeting. You were pretty sure he nodded his head in response, but the distance rendered his image a little too small to be confident.

It was too cold to wait outside for him, and you could feel some of the fabric in your arms starting to harden with ice, so you pulled open the door and began putting things away, hanging up the laundry, and starting a fire to warm up both the room and yet another kettle of water. 

A soft knock landed on your door shortly after. You opened it just enough to let Din in and then closed it behind you, leaning up against the wall to watch Din sit down. 

You had assumed he’d leave. 

“Thank you for yesterday,” he said. 

You nodded with a slight smile. “Anytime, Din. I mean it. I wouldn’t have given you my location all those years ago if I didn’t want to see you.”

“I—” He cut himself off. “Can I stay?”

“Stay?” You stood straight up in surprise and then winced at how badly the word had come out. “ _Frag_ , _of course_! You can stay as long as you want.”

“Thank you.”

It occurred to you that Din had likely not requested something for himself in a long time. The absolute laserbrain was too selfless for his own good. 

“Do you want something to eat? Or caf?” you asked, before quickly amending, “I can go into the bedroom while you eat.”

“It’s alright. I’m not hungry.” He said. 

You nodded, pushing yourself away from the wall to pour yourself a cup of caf. 

* * *

Din had moved onto your couch on the third day, and it surprised you every morning to walk out of your bedroom to the helmeted man curled up under a patchwork quilt. 

He wouldn’t talk much, usually joining you by the window facing the lake to read. And you would always leave a plate of food for him before you went to bed. 

Sometimes, he’d spend the day in his ship. It wasn’t the Razor Crest, and you weren’t about to ask him what happened to it. That ship used to be his whole life. 

You needed to go into the settlement one day. Din offered to fly you in his ship, but you refused. It was difficult to land anything on this planet during the dead of the snowy season with the dense cloud-cover, and you avoided it as much as possible. You had enough room in the enclosed snowspeeder for another rider and were pleased that he opted to join you. 

Things were just as quiet as they were without Din, but the comfort that came from doing it all with someone else around was undeniable. 

You weren’t sure how long he was planning on staying, and you knew even if he thought he was overstaying his welcome, you would never kick him out. You couldn’t. Despite all the years between you two, he was still a close friend. 

* * *

You were curled up on the armchair, wrapped up in a quilt and staring into the flickering light of the fire. The fireplace was a dark black, suspended over the ground. Next to it sat a pile of firewood, the rest of which was outside under the awning. Some of which needed to be brought in soon to dry out. 

The crackling filled the silence of the house. Din had gone out earlier that morning, mumbling something about fixing something in the ship. 

You were pretty sure it actually had something to do with the crying you heard last night. 

There was a mug of caf on the short table in front of you, and the book you had started reading right next to it. You had had to stop reading a while ago, too worried about Din’s health and the utter disruption to your routine to focus on the book. 

You could tell it was windy outside from the whistling around the cabin and the way the whole structure would slightly shift nearly every board in the ceiling, floor, and walls. It seemed to reflect the knot in your stomach, thoughts whirling around. How much had that kid meant to Din? And just how much did losing the kid affect him? Din had always been so… distant. Even when you were at your best in your relationship, he still kept things from you.

Sometimes it had felt like Din had the entire galaxy in his head and you were a mere asteroid, insignificant. And yet somehow you had garnered his friendship. 

It was odd, considering your past. As far as you could tell, you were bounty hunting before he even became a Mandalorian, and had known so much more of the entire universe. But he had always led a life that seemed to require a spotlight, a life of small, important, intentional tasks. Everything he did had so much meaning. The Creed affected him in that way. 

And now the man that had never stopped had settled down in your home, drooped shoulders and feet dragging through the snow. 

The door opened, wind and a few snowflakes blowing straight through the house. It slammed closed again and you looked over. 

“Morning,” you said, even though it was well into the afternoon. 

“Morning.” Din’s voice was even quieter than usual. He crossed the kitchen in only a few strides, each step causing the floorboards to creak until he was standing on the rug behind the couch. 

You reached over to grab your mug and gesture at the couch, “Want to sit down?”

A long moment stretched out. And then he nodded, awkwardly walking around to the front of the couch and sitting down. He was still stiff like he wasn’t used to couches.

To be fair, you hadn’t been used to couches either. Not for a very long time. 

“I should probably be going soon, I don’t want to rely on your hospitality for more than is welcome,” he said, still staring straight ahead.

“Din, you can stay as long as you want.” 

“You know I can’t,” he said. “Even if I’m welcome, I can’t stay; I’m probably being hunted down by Bo-Katan for the Darksaber. That doesn’t need to be traced back to you.”

“Oh.”

“I want to thank you, for everything.”

“You know you’re always welcome. I would have loved to see you in all these past years.”

“I would have—”

“I understand why you didn’t though. I assume you were in hiding during the civil war. And I wasn’t doing much better, sitting here and doing next to nothing, just trying to avoid being swept up in it all again.”

“Right.”

Something in the fire popped. You took another sip of caf. Din’s head dipped down, looking towards the book on the table. 

They weren’t common. They hadn’t even been, you thought, though a few worlds liked them for record-keeping. Data files could be lost or corrupted just as easily as a book could be burnt. Having come across a few over your years of hopping between planets, finding people running from you, hiding in the most obscure places, you had grown fascinated. So you had started collecting them when you retired from bounty hunting. A book or two from a woman on the other side of the planet. And then she delivered a crate to you a year later. Along with your speeder, you still had a small ship which you took out once in a while. One time, while stopping at a refueling station on route to Corellia, you had entered the marketplace to find a small shop of various unusual and uncommon objects, including a few books, one of which was the one you were currently reading. 

The small collection had slowly grown to fill a complete bookshelf, which you had completed construction on a few years back. 

You still hadn’t read all of them.

Din shuffled in his seat, leaning back and sinking into the cushions in a way you hadn’t seen him ever do.

“Where will you go?” you whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Not really, I guess,” he responded. “Keep moving. Try to pick up some jobs. I’m still in the guild.”

“What about your people?”

“They’re gone. Missing,” he said. “Most are dead.”

You weren’t sure how to— “Wait, your armor! Do you… have a clan?” There was a signet there that definitely wasn’t there when you last saw him. You had noticed it on the first day, but with your limited knowledge of Mandalorians, it hadn’t clicked until just now. 

Din looked down and over at his shoulder, as if he didn’t know it was there either. The skull glinted in the firelight, reflections dancing across its contours. A mudhorn, it looked like. 

“I do.”

“Who else?”

“It’s just me,” he said, slowly. 

“Just you?”

“And the kid.”

Right. Din and the kid. Grogu. That’s what he said his name was. 

“And this, Jedi? That took him?” You asked. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“I didn’t think there were any left. When you spoke of them, of meeting _two_? That—I don’t know what to make of it, but it is probably good. For the whole galaxy.”

“Yes.”

“But is Grogu a Jedi? Or is he a foundling, like you once were?”

“He trained with Jedi. For years. He’s fifty. Those are his people. That’s where he belongs.”

“Is he not part of your clan too?”

* * *

You stood ankle-deep in the snow by the lake. Din descended one last time from his ship, just a few meters in front of you. 

“You could come with me, you know?” He said, walking over to stand in front of you.

You nodded. “I do. But my place is here. I’m older than you remember, and even all those years ago, after the accident, I—” You took a sharp inhale then exhaled slowly, watching the vapor condensate in front of you. “That’s no longer my place. But you are always welcome back here. Whenever you want, Din. You’re not alone.”

He nodded. You stepped forward, wrapping your arms around him. The beskar was hard and cold, but your snowsuit was enough of a buffer to keep you from discomfort. He gingerly embraced you as well, and no amount of beskar and snow could keep you from feeling the warmth that spread through your body.

“I love you, Din,” you whispered. It was less a profession or admittance, and more a statement. An aphorism. “I have for a long time. You’re the greatest friend in the galaxy.”

You could feel his body shake a bit, and the softest sound of a chuckle reverberated, not through the modulator of his helmet, but through his neck and chest, a truer, direct contact with the rare sound that seemed nearly reserved for you.

“You’re more than a friend,” Din said. “You know that.”

You smiled into the fabric of his shirt. 

“I’m going to miss you.”

“And I you.” 

You stepped back from the hug. “May the force be with you.”

He reached out one last time, holding your hand for a brief second before nodding and returning to the ship, entering the cargo hold. Without a glance back, the door began to close, and you whispered into the wind.

“See you later.”

The ship roared to life, and with a burst of air and the deep bass of a thick layer of snow moving, it lifted off from the surface, holding for a moment, and then kicked forward and up, straight into the thick white fog and into the stars beyond.


End file.
